Flashback – Bored – Closed

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Technically, Barricade was a new-spark.

He’d been around of course. But not that long, long enough to get bored. Online long enough to remember when the first Megatronus data stream hit the Communication Grid. The hack had been – or so he was told – flawlessly executed, spiking the ether-hubs at high-traffic, dumping eons of revolutionary fever – more virulent than a wartime neurovirus – into the memetic data pool of the populace. Protests, some peaceful, some less so, sparked all across Kaon and the sub-sectors of all the city-states world-wide. Barricade’s first assignment had been back-tracing the originators of this message. They set him loose like an Insecticon to the scent, hunting them down through Kaon’s Pits and the Undersprawl, all the way back to the fluid-tacky floors of the gladiator halls. But by then it was far too late… and too many proxies to prove it was Megatronus himself.

Well… too many fall-guys willing to take his place in jail anyway.

These were things Barricade cared about. You know would never know it looking at him, though. Dark armored and tough; the mean powerful angles of him were healthy with semi-regular fueling. A four-wheeler, off-roader, and racer, his framework is not actually that big. Closer examination would tell you he was kind of slender, hard angles and razor edges lending him illusionary girth. Two arm-mounted wheels power a murderous rotor-system that would power his titanium claws through any number of living and inanimate obstacles.

Barricade was mean and, most importantly, he was necessary and he was used to being used. That’s why he switched sides in the first place after all.

“So,” said Barricade, somewhat petulantly, looking up over the gladiator’s desk at him. “I’m not here to take care of the foremechs in sub-sector seven. The ones suppressing the data-exchanges and reporting their workers to the enforcer mechs? I’m here… to not do that?”

[Deleted]

"No," Megatronus replied, dragging a blunt finger thoughtfully across the surface that served as a desk, a worktable, storage and a secondary berth slab if required. His room in the gladiator halls was as sparse and functional as any other's. The secret panel not withstanding.

He met the young mech's optics, taking in the hard fractals and pulse of sparklife, so fast it was almost imperceptable. Keen blue but edged with... something Megatronus was always intrigued by. The impact of Barricade's stare never truly lessened with repetition.

"You're here to take care of the foremechs, but not in the manner you and your operatives did last time." The gladiator sat back, adding with dry force: "Mainline cuts in a back alley is not what I meant by 'discrete', Barricade."

[Deleted]

“Mainlines cut in back-alleys get things done,” said Barricade helpfully, but when his only garnered him a look, the young racer-frame threw up his hands. “Fine. Fine,” he surrendered, spinning his wheels in his shoulder mounts. An openly antsy gesture. “Delicate operations only, so nuanced not even the most paranoid Counciler could possibly trace this back to you, your cause, or all the sunshine and energon gummies you’re selling it with. I mean, we wouldn’t want to be sending a mixed message, would we?”

That last question was slightly more than rhetorical, considering that the data-streams hitting the Comm-Grid had been spinning this uprising in far loftier terms than an infiltrator would credit it with. But infiltrators were, by nature, mercurial and suspicious and his particular model had been credited with a 40% insanity rate so maybe he wasn’t onw to talk. Barricade supposed this too was going to get him a look, maybe a threat or three. Tronus wasn’t ready to come across the desk at him though. Not yet anyhow. Megatronus had a surprising amount of patience for a gladiator… which wasn’t, of course, to suggest that the ex-miner had much patience at all, but he had a surplus for a bot of his background.

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One day, Megatronus reflected, Barricade wasn't going to be able to enter a room because some physics-glitch had materialized his attitude and filled the room and surrounding corridors with it. Young and impetuous the gladiator was used to in Tiers two and three, but this mech presented a particular kind of forthrightness that meshed entirely too well with a want for violence. Not a lust for a fight, not exactly, but a keeness to have a bloody impact.

A useful quality on occassion, but for now, it needed to be predominantly leashed and reeled back in.

"The revolution is a machine, evolving in increments to gain strength and momentum." The large mech spoke as if correcting a stupid error that a Tier Two should have corrected or been killed for in Tier Three. "It is not a hammer striking upon a warped plate."

Megatronus rose from the battered chair and moved around the equally marred desk to lean against it directly in front of the young mech. Folding his arms, he communicated his displeasure in field and tone alone. Quite restrained in comparison to his match earlier in the day.

"The foremen may need to vanish with the kind of permanence you are inclined towards, but that is not what is required now. There are too many links with councilors that are still being maneuvered, and at present, their deaths could still be swiftly linked to us."

[Deleted]

“Just wanted to be clear on the tack we are taking,” said Barricade, not moving an inch from where he was leaning, now fully engulfed in the near stifling physicality that was Megatronus’ energy field. There were mechs for whom the word ‘presence’ was not merely figure of speech and this miner-gladiator from Kaon was one of those one a million mechanoids, their existence like radiation off a dark star and burning a hole in the universe where ever they stood. Standing on the opposite side of a desk from this mech and Barricade could not have been more convinced of Megatronus ability to kill him without him reaching across the desk and making it so.

It was a rare gift. That kind of murderous aura. It was also easily convertible into charisma. When a whole class of downtrodden looked for someone to like, they looked for someone powerful and Megatronus reeked of power. He vented it, seemed to have it built into him at the molecular level, his spark powered by the cold fusion core of some dangerous and relentless nucleus. All he had to do was stand up and say “I will protect you” and any drop-caste, name-banned, sub-plater with a wrong to call theirs would fall in love – that deep obsessive, I-will-die-for-your-words kind of love that made a movement dangerous.

And he was smart. Barricade thought sometimes that Megatronus couldn’t be real: so perfectly damaged to his cause – his background geared to set him so violently and unstoppably on this course. Like Primus sparked him for it. He knew he wasn’t the only one who saw it either.

“We’re playing to the mid-caste’s sympathies, politically, I mean. We are not militant, we are simply… backed into a chorner. Which we are, that is true, but we only hit when we are first hit. A reactionary, self-defense… the victim card. Is that what our cause is? A movement of victims appealing to the upper caste for mercy in light of our wounds? We look to the masters for uplifting? Use their words, their terms, to be granted our freedom? Tell me if I’m not spinning this right.”

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Barricade had a gift with words, twisting others to terror with mere sounds in the air. He treated them like weapons of high specialised purpose, understanding their nuance and shading in context. He threw 'self-defense', 'victim', 'appealing', 'mercy', 'wounds', ' uplifting' and 'granting' at Megatronus's chassis, dripping with cynical disdain but not 'I could do better'. Barricade pushed because he wanted to see more, not because he had doubt.

Megatronus was good with words too.

"The revolution cannot come solely from the low Tiers. We outnumber them; possess more tangible power than them because we are hardened by dark and vicious living; are slowly uniting not out of resignation to our lot but out of anger that we are kept from becoming more; and we are not going away." Megatronus spoke with the conviction of knowing, his tone pitched as it was in every rally and demonstration: so that others may know too.

"We frighten them, but that fear must be more sophisticated than the fear of monsters and pit-dwellers who would slay their sparkling-builds, tear down their homes and lay waste to all that they know."

Uncrossing his arms, Megatronus rested his hands on the edge of the desk. His fingers curled to reach far along the underside in a loose curl. "They must come to realize that we will no longer obey in self-defense, resign ourselves to being necessary victims of oppression in a society that needs hard laborers, will speak in a million unified voices to appeal for equality, will not accept not being dismantled to build more compliant workers as the highest mercy they can bestow, that we shall not define ourself by our wounds as they would want, and that we shall give them the opportunity to work with us in uplifting us to an equal plane and granting us not priviledges but rights."

A beat during which Barricade's steady gaze did not falter, and Megatronus stood fully. He made no move closer to the sharp-angled mech, but the shift did plant him closer to the core of the gladiator's considerable field.

"I am not yet ready to bring about a war. Not if I may yet show them that they are wrong and that we will no longer accept it. It is easy not to feel guilt or shame if the complaints can be ignored. They cannot ignore us now. And they must adapt to accept us as fellow Cybertronians and not cogs in the underbelly of society, lest we become the monsters of their nightmares."

[Deleted]

A smile crossed like a shadow over Barricade’s mouth and, again, he wondered if this mech was real. He’d been sitting around waiting for this kind of interesting to crop up on his radar from the day he was sparked bored and prone to lying, surrounded by a population of mecha with buttons for pushing and no one seemed to see but him. He’d been waiting. Granted, Megatronus hadn’t made him wait long, showing up wrecked and full of justice. Perhaps that was why, unlike his 40% brothers, Barricade hadn’t collapsed into the abyss of his own mind and done something… worth being dismantled for.

“No better rallying cry,” said Barricade, “than the one from atop moral high-ground. Got it. I won’t say I believe in the nuance of that philosophy, the mandate of giving the powerful corrupt a chance to negociate and shore up their attack against you… but I do believe in lulling an enemy into a false sense of security. So, when they do what I know they are going to do – namely, not listen – then I will be there ready to be commanded.” He smiled, wandering away from the desk. “Because I believe in sending a message. I’ll wait until you say so… but I have a ‘message’ at the ready, here in mind and ready to go if you can only provide a few willing soldiers of chaos who would like to participate.”

Barricade turned around. “But like I said, I’m waiting on your say so.”

[Deleted]

"A last resort," Megatronus reminded, not having moved from the edge of the desk. He watched Barricade's retreating form with a thin smile.


**** Time jump of four months ****


Megatron's last gladiatorial match had been geared for spectacle, and had delivered on every plateau of carnage, violence and entertainment. A pair of Tier Two mechs with superior weaponry had been the warm up to a solid Tier One with archaic gear - sword, shield and mace. The revolutionist had fought throughout with all three, and they lay energon-smeared and caked with compacted metal shavings and protomass against the wall of the shower rack whilst the gladiator tended first to the considerable mess on his own frame.

After the extensive repairs that his meeting with Crashmaster had necessitated, Soundwave had accelerated the process of buying him out of Syndicate control by becoming his patron. Today he had left the Arena for the last time, a free mech, and could devote himself fully to the revolution and the ongoing battle with the Council. He had shortened his name to mark the transition, the turning point for everything.

He'd invited Barricade to meet for the first time in months in the showers on the grounds of plausible deniability. Since Crashmaster, he'd only contacted the restless mech once - to arrange legal passage for the Twins to ascend to the sadist's high rise with their subspaces packed with explosives. They had, as requested, returned with the decadent sculpture - worth fifty stellar cycles of his old life to the caste privileged with the ability to use other Cybertronians as things.

He kept it on his desk in his new apartment as a reminder.

Stepping out of the most powerful spray in the centre of the room now that the worst of the chemical viscera was off, Megatron set about getting the charred energon out from between his plates with a wire brush. His own and his three gloriously fought and dispatched opponents.

Some of this, he would admit, he was going to miss.

[Deleted]

“So,” said a voice from the opposite end of the wash-racks. A black-armored figure diverged from a slice of shadow near the side entry to the racks. “Far be it from me to criticize you for choosing a trophy to mark the passing of so fantastic a glitch as Crashmaster, but one that costs what it takes to buy a small starship is… ostentatious.” The no identifiable shape of Barricade moved into the chemical mist of the washracks, exoplating immediately catching wetly, gold sparks of light reflecting hard of the edges of his finish, deep black and purple undergloss in the accents. Blue optics flickered in the poor lighting. “Not that I can complain.”

And he really could not. He’d once said he wanted to send a message and there were few messages more clear than a fist of nitroglycerin ignited with incendiary blast jelly. Megatronus’ twin assassins couldn’t have been less conspicuous and difficult to get into the Towers without notice, but one of the few good things about the Towers was how obnoxiously painted glitch-heads were common enough to go unnoticed. They’d done their gory work, leveled the mech’s apartment with fire, and run laughing into the night. The news reels were still buzzing. Enforcers on the task not sure what to address first or what to think of the attack on a mech who had so many enemies there was absolutely no telling who might be responsible.

Their nascent revolution was one of many suspects.

Barricade moved to lean back against a divider in the middle of the racks, tilting his head and watching the gladiator with an inscrutable kind of look. Then, suddenly, his grin was a knife-slash in the silver of his face. “What do you want me to do now?”

[Deleted]

Megatron did not look at the corrupt law mech, made no move to indicate that he was aware of his presence. He kept his optics on the flared and split armour of his forearm, coaxing out the filth that had congealed beneath gear lines and hydraulic cables. Arguably delicate work that always stung, though it was a comfortingly familiar pain at this point. A sign of victory - that he could still feel in this limb.

"That trinket serves as a reminder that there are worse mecha than the most depraved pit dwellers exercising their powers in the high rises, and that license for their obliteration is required," Megatron ultimately replied, keeping the motions of the brush steady and careful despite the flashes of mesh-memory coarsing through his chassis. Flickers of Crashmaster's servo in his spark, voice crooning slick like the highest quality oil in his audios.

He twisted his arm in the spray and closed the plates, swapping the brush to repeat the process inside his other arm. "The foremechs in subsector seven did not heed the warning, and they've had the luxury of time. I want you to revist them, and ensure that I never need hear of their acts of oppression again."

Working the brush in quick drags, Megatron dislodged a solid clump of burnt protomatter and paused as it fell away and slapped heavily on the floor. As it made halting progress towards the drain, he looked to Barricade. "You know the difference between a mess that can be traced and a mess that cannot. Other than that, feel at liberty to be creative."

[Deleted]

“No worries on that,” said Barricade, the luminance in his optics shifting fractal light as he tipped his head the other way, as though the slight change in degree would somehow do something to improve or clarify what he was seeing. It could have just been that Barricade was trying to figure out what design spec-pool exactly Megatronus’ frame-type had been spliced out of, what slightly rogue twist in frame-design had produced the configuration of the massive Cybertronian’s back and shoulder hydraulics, how exactly someone had fit his parts together in blue print and not thought to themselves – this is not a frame for the Pits.

Or maybe that was it. Some mass-producer of miner-level, drop-caste frame types got sick of one blocky, hard-shell, thick-headed, neural-inhibited ugly things and thought they’d design something remarkable instead. He was half-convinced was some errant Praux sub-set in the linkage arrangement, something of Iacon in lower back, Tarn certainly in the internals. Barricade wondered if that mech recognized their design, if that nameless, faceless, Creator was proud. Or dead. Barricade was always willing to bet on dead on this side of Cybertron.

“I know what I’m doing and, clearly, as of lately, so do you.” Cade tapped his claws against the divider. “Is it as freeing for you as it is for me?”

[Deleted]

Where Megatron had been giving Barricade his back within the cleanser sprays, he half-stepped to face the smaller mech. His arm plating slid and snapped back into place, the sound replaced by quiet whirs and clicks from inside the massive chassis. Whilst the thick surface armour only flexed outwards a few inches, and did not unseal at all, behind components twitched and shunted about to let the cleanser seeping down through his collar faring was out the worst of the filth.

Cleaning without exposing. He'd do a more thorough detail in his quarters, later.

"I have had the freedom to kill for many vorns, just as I have had the freedom to move arms and to inspire unrest in those living in ignorance of their own Pit." Megatron tipped his helm back into the spray, rolling his shoulder mounts as he did so. It was not unlike Barricade to linger for a semi-baiting chat after receiving his instructions. "It is not a liberation to elect to do so, merely a change of strategy."

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“It’s not a change in strategy,” said Barricade, claws still tapping against the tile. There was a kind of low-tone cold in his voice. “It’s the same strategy… just un-handicapped by the notions of non-violence and victimhood your Grid acolyte keeps spreading. Do what you need to do publically, politically, whatever to convince them of your legitimacy and harmlessness in the public eye only… but you weren’t doing that. You told me wait. You told me stop. You told me hold back on the mechs and monsters and bright plate murders who’ve been the smelting the corpses of your dead for scrap metal and selling your still living frames for energon the low-caste never taste.”

Cade stopped tapping his claws. The chemical mist breathed fog against his plates, dripping from the edges of his plating.

“How is it not freeing, to be honest with yourself about your intent? Your methods? How is that not better to premeditate your intentions? Leave the idealism to your Grid friend and let them call gather round him and his pretty pictures of a world free of sin where the High Council will listen and change. Let real revolutionaries look to reality.” Cade shrugged. “Feels like liberation to me.”

[Deleted]

Barricade asked a lot of questions, but they were not for himself. Always, constantly, they were for the gladiator-turned-revolutionist to answer for his own sake. The smaller mech was a sounding board and a stimulator of thought, his ambitions directed towards making Megatron as potent a force to be reckoned with as possible from the ground up.

Barricade also had a knack for making mecha talk outside of his skillfull applications of pain and terror. Aware of this, Megatron appreciated Barricade's counsel and wherever possible maneuvered their meetings to take place in absolute privacy - including from Soundwave.

"Realizing that the councilmechs, that every mecha in any position of power will never change their attitudes towards us in thinking of us as cogs, is not liberating," Megatron replied with all the heaviness of confession and blunt weight of conviction. He moved out of the cleanser sprays entirely and towards the soiled weapons leaning against the wall a little way from the enforcer.

"It is despairing to know that our society will never unite, and that it is the priviledged and not the subjegated with reason to hate and never forgive that are making it that way."

Taking up the axe - no charge capability, no energon blade, just a raw and solid weapon - by the handle, Megatron straightened and levelled his bloody optics on the watching mech. It required little movement to step across the distance between them and lay the back of one deadly hand on Barricade's wheelmount in emphasis.

"I am not admitting defeat in my original goal, but I am realistically preparing for it. I will not see those I speak for silenced after all this when the Senate simply turns its back on me. We will already be ready to advance, faster and more powerfully than they can imagine or comprehend."

[Deleted]

Barricade grinned.

“Sounds like a plan.”

The infiltrator didn’t seem to mind the grip on his shouldermount. He looked the rebel, the easy pull and pulse of his EMF flickering lazy through the air around him, gears and armor shifting a little bit in the humidity and chemical concentration inside the racks. He shook a bit of the condensation from his armor, plates flaring open to shake the liquid then hissing slowly back into place, hydraulics flexing in the heat.

“More than than,” he said, optics roving to the weapon in the gladiator’s grip. “It sounds like a cause.” Pale eyes flicked back up to Megatronus’ face, briefly watching the gather and fall of chemical solvents at the edge of his helm. “You know what the most annoying thing about the high caste? They don’t fear like they should.” Cade’s claws bits into the pitted tile beneath his hands. “I know. I listen to them when they think no one’s there and the things they say… Millions of years of doing whatever they want has eroded from them the very concept that they should be afraid of us, afraid of mechs with words like you because they really believe in this Golden Age.”

The tile cracked beneath Cade’s grip and he picked a shard out of the broken wall.

“They’re just so used to everything going according to their plans,” he said, a kind of weird hatred in his voice, this subsonic of longing beneath the sound. “It’s just so… annoying. Their lack of fear.” Cade laughed a little. “I’d rip down every institution they have just to see their faces.”